Such a sad joke - The 'poor lady' killed the guy?
The legal injustice system in Texas just goes on and on and on, like the Energizer Bunny on speed, with no apparent end in sight as it pertains to the 2015 murder of 96-year-old McAllen resident Martin Knell.
In this instance, the injustice on display pertains to the Monica Melissa Palacios Patterson capital murder trial that took place in Hidalgo County in the fall of 2017. At the end of the trial, which lasted just short of six weeks, the former PSJA High grad who comes from a prominent local political family was found guilty of capital murder (Knell), two counts of theft, and one count of attempted theft.
The latest legal twist pertaining to her multiple crimes came to light last Wednesday, only a day or so after the family of Patterson’s murder victim finally learned that their attorney had successfully landed a probate court date for a motion for summary judgment, asking that the money (stocks) Patterson stole from her murder victim finally be returned to the estate.
That’s the way the justice system should work, right? You kill a guy, or a woman, for personal gain, and you shouldn’t be allowed to keep your murder victim’s money.
Even if the pending assets are being held in an equity account until the murder victim’s Last Will and Testament is probated, there should come some sense of finality. In a sense of irony, the Knell Will still has Patterson, the convicted murderess, listed as the estate’s main benefactor, AKA, kill for gain.
The dirty deed was covered on two cable shows – Discovery ID’s “Diabolical” and Oxygen’s “Snapped.” The Oxygen show is available on Youtube. The Discovery ID show is still airing on cable TV or via a streaming service.
Plus, after covering the trial for six weeks, I managed to publish a book about it, Murder for the Love of Money, available at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble (online).
The book basically includes the news stories and columns I published in this newspaper while covering the trial from late September to early November 2017. The book also includes some new original copy obtained after the trial.
So far, Patterson, who turns 55 this week, is still locked away for life in a woman’s state prison in central Texas with no chance of parole.
But that doesn’t stop her appellate attorneys from trying to get her back on the streets.
After all, it’s no surprise that she’s still doing all she can to regain her freedom, especially considering that hundreds of thousands of stolen dollars remain missing from the Knell estate. Plenty of money to mount an appeal.
If I murdered someone in cold blood, I’d be looking to get out of prison too and resume my life. Maybe even find another clueless nonprofit that has a clueless board in place, which was the case when Patterson served as the administrator of the Comfort House (provides hospice care) from late 2013 to her ultimate downfall in August of 2015 when law enforcement finally slapped her in cuffs and charged her with capital murder.
It was then that the nonprofit board discovered that not only had Patterson cleaned out its investment fund but that their operating account was empty as well.
After her murder/theft conviction in November 2017, the trial judge, Noe Gonzalez from the 370th state District Court, was the first to deny Patterson’s appeal, ruling that the jury’s guilty verdicts were legit and sound. No reason to order a new trial.
Next came Texas’ 13th District Court of Appeals, which also denied Patterson’s appeal. The court laid out why the murder/theft convictions were sound in a 58-page document, detailing how the crimes went down, based on the evidence submitted during the long trial.
All of these legal machinations, keep in mind, used up months and years of time while her murder victim’s remaining assets were held in limbo.
Finally, in February of 2021, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, basically refusing to comment on the Patterson appeal, sent the case back to the 13th, which meant that court’s denial stood. The appeals process was finally over, approximately 39 long months after the jury convicted Patterson of four felony counts, including capital murder.
It Never Ends
Now, approximately 17 long months later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals remanded Patterson’s murder conviction back to the trial court (the 370th) last week, saying that the convicted murderess’s appellate attorneys had amended their original appeal (writ of habeas corpus), but the high court didn’t receive the Memorandum in time.
Seriously? When does this crazy train finally come to a stop?
I thought the poor murder victim’s family was done with this nightmare last February when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declined the hear the appeal. The Knell family finally got a hearing date scheduled for probate court, and now this new deal comes along from the state’s highest court? Now, it’s decided to get its hooks back into the Patterson appeal by sending it back to the trial court? The same week the family gets a hearing date set in probate court? A big coincidence, no?
Patterson already killed the old WWII vet, Martin Knell. Twelve of her peers convicted her of doing so. Is she now trying to kill the son, too, by adding all of this stress and aggravation to his existence? Sitting in prison, she’s got nothing else to do, so with the help of her appellate attorneys getting paid with who knows what money, let’s screw with the guy some more by writing baseless claims, in my opinion?
That’s called justice?
Who could have known.
The new so-called Memorandum filed by Patterson’s appellate attorneys is actually hilarious if murder was indeed a humorous topic.
For example, the Memorandum (replete with typos) dated April 29, 2022, basically throws everyone under the bus, including Patterson’s local Dream Team at trial, comprised of four of the most experienced criminal defense attorneys working Hidalgo County. According to the appellate attorneys they failed to do an adequate job defending their client.
Angel Mario Garza, the guy who confessed to the murder shortly before Patterson’s arrest in August 2015, saying that Patterson hired him to help kill Knell, after which both committed the murder, is also denying any involvement. Also, according to a bail bondsman who met with Garza shortly after his arrest, Patterson is really some “poor lady” who didn’t have anything to do with the murder, according to Garza at the time.
Old man Knell died of cardiac arrest.
Sure, he did. That’s because Patterson was holding a plastic bag tight over his head. Do that long enough and anyone will suffer from cardiac arrest. Heart’s going to stop beating at some point.
Not only that, according to Patterson’s appellate attorneys, but there is this medical examiner formerly based in California, who has now moved with her family to New Zealand, who is willing to refute the autopsy findings presented during trial by one of the most experienced pathologists in the state, Dr. Norma Jean Farley.
The murder victim really died of cardiac arrest.
The female doc being used by the appellate attorneys to refute Farley’s findings is now based out of New Zealand, with her own book and Wikipedia page. A forensic gun for hire, so to speak.
According to the appellate Memorandum, Garza was basically bullied into his confession.
Uh-huh.
Bottom line, if not for the courage of one brave woman, Patterson would have gotten away with the murder.
It's a strange world out there, for sure.
That brave woman, caregiver to the murder victim, was the crown jewel to the Patterson murder trial. She was there when it happened, and her testimony on the witness stand was strong and damning. Garza had threatened her right after the murder, she said, but her conscience wouldn’t let her remain silent, and that’s when she went to see the Texas Rangers.
Question is, even after Judge Gonzalez rules on this new discredit to the law, and he has 90 days to rule, who’s to say that Patterson’s appellate attorneys can’t start all over and file a new Writ of Habeas Corpus, starting again the entire process?
Will this aberration to the law ever come to an end, or will the estate of Patterson’s murder victim forever remain in limbo, because it’s pretty much a given that the probate judge won’t make any ruling, even though she should, while the murder conviction is still out on appeal.
Such an injustice to the murder victim’s family.
Watch the two shows on Oxygen (Snapped) or Discovery ID (Diabolical), or read the book, Murder for the Love of Money, and tell me with a straight face that Monica Melissa Palacios Patterson is innocent of murder and theft based on all of the evidence presented. It can’t be done.
Her trial attorneys did a fine job at trial, no matter what her appellate attorneys are now saying. It’s just that they had nothing to work with, which is why there were no defense witnesses to call to testify.